INDUSTRIAL SAFETY AND QUALITY OF WORK LIFE

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Quality of work life (QWL) has its roots in scientific management advocated by F.W. Taylor way back in 1940's. The mechanical approach or quantitative approach that scientific management assured gave way to the frustration of workers which led to human relations movement and later socio-technical movement which is the basis for today's Quality of Work Life. Thus, the evaluation of the concept QWL was mainly in three phases- Scientific management, human relations movement and finally socio-technical movement. The socio-technical system advocates such an organizational design which ensures high quality of work life. Most of the organizations are interested in enhancing employee's QWL and generally try to instill the feeling of security, equality, pride and prestige, among its employees. For this purpose procedures and policies are framed to make the work less routine and more rewarding for the employees. These procedures or policies provide autonomy, recognition, good working condition and conferring awards in appreciation of work done etc.

QWL dimensions are broadly divided into: Classical dimensions and   Contemporary dimensions. Classical dimensions include physical working conditions, employees' welfare, employee assistance, job factors and financial factors whereas, Contemporary dimensions include collective bargaining, industrial safety and health, grievance redressal procedure, quality circles, work-life balance, workers' participation in management etc. Industrial Safety is one of the contemporary factors, which influence the QWL of the employees.

          Industrial accidents cause disastrous damage to the life and property of the people.  The dawn of 20th Century ushered a new era in Industrial Safety.  The modern industrial safety movement was started in 1912 with the help of Co-operative Safety Congress.The National Safety Council was set up on 4th March 1966 in Mumbai at the initiative of the Union Ministry of Labour and Rehabilitation, Government of India to promote safety consciousness to prevent accidents and to conduct safety programmes.

          The Government of India extended top priority to industrial safety, particularly after the Bhopal Gas tragedy in Union Carbide Factory in 1985, where thousands of people lost their lives and lakhs of people turned disabled.  This situation compelled the Government to implement mandatory safety measures in every industrial undertaking.  The Workmen's Compensation Act imposed a financial burden on Management for the workforce to be insured against injuries, disablements, deaths and diseases.  More sophisticated organizations, discovered that safety programmes were cost effective. The hidden costs of accidents are typically four times the direct and obvious costs. Federal Legislation and accompanying court decisions have added a "police and punish" approach in the form of surprise inspections and fines.

          Safety is defined as "Protection of physical health of people in the organisation and prevention of work related injuries and accidents." The safety awareness programmes are very important to industrial employees. The safety rules need to be laid down and be enforced by every organization. Safety is primarily the responsibility of the management. This responsibility should rest on the shoulders of all cadres of management; such as plant managers, maintenance engineers, supervisors, foremen and safety managers.

          The accident represents a social loss of great magnitude in the form of pain, loss of earning capacity and disturbance to economic efficiency. Getting men to work safely is primary concern of employer to ensure safe performance. Prevention of accidents is an objective of every organization which requires no explanation. This is one area in which there is complete identity of employer-employee interests, the employee does not want to be injured and the employer does not want to incur the cost of injury.

          Safety measures prevent accidents and ensure regular flow of work. In turn, it helps, to increase not only the workers morale but also productivity of the organisation without fear unless otherwise safe working conditions are provided. The employer has primary responsibility to provide or arrange such type of environment. The main causes of accidents may be Human causes like: age, education, health condition, experience, psychological factors, social factors etc., or Technical Causes like, hazardous arrangement, defective equipment, poor house keeping etc., or Environment causes like, poor lighting and ventilation, congestion and over-crowding, humidity, long hours of work and high speed working machines.

      Two types of ratios are used to measure industrial safety i.e., Frequency rate and Severity rate. The frequency rate can be expressed as the lost-time due to accidents per million man-hours worked; the severity rate is the number of days lost due to accident per million man-hours worked. According to National Safety Council USA, prevention of accidents depends upon 3E's –Engineering, Education and Enforcement. The job should be engineeredfor safety, employees should be educated in safety procedures and safety rules should be properly enforced.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:-    The objectives of the study are:

1. 1.      To know the contribution of safety measures for the improvement of employees' quality in work life of Hindustan Zinc Limited.

1. 2.      To examine the number of accidents in HZL, Visakhapatnam during the period under study.

1. 3.      To study the employees' opinion on working conditions, preventive suggestions given by safety officers and safety education programmes of the organization.

1. 4.      To know the effectiveness of the present accident communication reporting system and suggest appropriate system.

METHODOLOGY:

          The study is based on both primary and secondary data. The secondary data is collected from organisation records, management reports and special project reports to understand the present state of industrial safety. Primary data is collected from the workers of the organisation with the help of questionnaire. There are 807 employees in HZL, Visakhapatnam, out of which 80 are in management cadre. The remaining 727 employees are grouped into nine categories based on the nature of work from which 115 employees are selected randomly.

SAFETY MEASURES IN HZL, VISAKHAPATNAM:

         Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL) was established on 10th January 1966 as a public sector unit. Initially, the Sterilite Opportunities and Venture Limited (SOVL) running under the Vendanta Group of Company have only 26 percent of paid up capital; further 20 percent is brought from market through open offer and 18.92 percent from Government of India (GOI) under call option in 2003-04 according to disinvest policy system implemented by GOI in 2002. Now 64.92 percent of stake is going under the private control of SOVL. At initial stage the annual turnover was only Rs. 2 crores, whereas 2004-05 the annual turnover of the company around Rs 1841.5 crores. HZL, Visakhapatnam unit started its production in 1977. The total cost of the project was around Rs. 48.5 Crores. The Lead plant was expensed in 1984 with a cost of Rs.9 Crores. The products and installed capacity of the company are Zinc Ingots: 33,000 TPA, Cadmium Pencils: 115 TPA, Sulphuric Acid: 75,000 TPA and silver: 30 TPA.

          The company has recognized Human resource as the best asset, without developing human resources; the company cannot face the challenge in the changing global environment. An innovative employee learning concept, "Continuous Learning Environment" has been developed and implemented in HZL, Visakhapatnam. Vizag Zinc-Lead Smelter won National Award for Best HRD Practices for 2002-03 from Society for Training and Development. Depending upon the categories and department requirements, different training programs have been conducted by HZL.

          A separate corporate level safety department is set up at New Delhi to maintain safe working conditions at all units of the HZL by appointing a Senior Manager (Safety & Environment) to look after the safety environment at the corporate level. At the same time a separate safety department is set up to ensure the safety measures in HZL, Visakhapatnam. Unit heads and officers working under them are responsible for implementation and monitoring the safety policy at unit level. The safety objectives of HZL are:

• ·     To develop a culture conduct to safe working in the mines and smelters.
• ·     To improve working conditions and environment.
• ·     To propagate safety measures and create safety consciousness among the women, supervisors and officers.
• ·     To train workmen as well as supervisors in their respective field of operations.
• ·     To reduce the scope of accidents and to aim at accident free performance.
• ·     To adopt measures for improvement in Health Standards.
• ·     To ensure that there is no long-term effects on health due to smelters and industrial environment.
• ·     To ensure that all statutory provisions relating to the safety are followed.

To achieve the above objectives the organisation spends Rs.30 lakhs, annually, by following seven golden safety rules along with 5E's for ensuring safety. The Seven Golden safety rules are:

1. 1.      If a worker has seen any unsafe situation, which is likely to cause an accident, then it may be intimated to the supervisor, plant in-charge or manager (safety). The accident even of small nature may be intimated immediately.

1. 2.      Keep once's premises neat and clean. There are possibilities for accidents due to bad management of the house.

1. 3.      Do not act hurriedly or in a careless way, which may cause accident for any other person.

1. 4.      Observe prescribed rules inside the factory and keep it always clean and hurdleless.

1. 5.      Wear the appropriate uniform and safety devices given to the employee at the work spot while he is working.

1. 6.      Comply the instructions of concerned supervisor and plant in-charge while working at the work-spot and ask them for clarification if any doubt arises.

1. 7.      Do not worry during emergency and act immediately carefully and on understanding the situation.

As regards the 5E's, the job should be Engineered for safety, employees should be Educatedin safe procedures, the seven golden rules should properly be Enforced, the accident prevention should be achieved only by Enthusiasm and the supervisors and foremen should be an Example to others in the implementing the safety rules.

Safe working conditions play a key role for prevention of accidents and maintaining safety environment. The employees' opinion on the working conditions of HZL, Visakhapatnam is shown in Table.1. Majority of the respondents felt happy with regard to Illumination (84.35per cent), Ventilation and temperature (75.66 per cent), Sanitation (73.04 per cent), Machine Fencing (71.30 per cent) and Drinking Water (100 per cent). Thus it can be concluded that the overall working environment of HZL is praise-worthy.

The safety department provides necessary safety appliances to every employee. The employees' opinion on quality of safety appliances provided by safety department is shown in Table.2. More than 90 respondents out of 115 accounting for 78.26 per cent stated that the quality of safety appliances except safety shoes is either good or satisfactory.

          The HZL, Visakhapatnam has conducted many Safety Education-Training Programmes in the organization to educate the employees and minimize the occurrence of accidents. The study revealed that the employees' participation and their opinion on safety education training programmes. 83 respondents out of 115 (72.17 per cent) have participated in Safety Education Training Programmes. Out of 83 respondents, 66 employees (75 per cent) are of the view that the training programs are good and 67.47 per cent of employees are opinioned that these programmes are very much helpful to reduce the number of accidents.

          The essential condition for the efficient maintenance of safety in the organisation is frequent inspection by safety manager who is staffed with experience engineers. By adopting the constructive attitude, making plant visits and valuable suggestions, accidents can be reduced and improve the safe working conditions. Along with safety manager the HZL, management also assists in the fulfillment of its obligation concerning prevention of personal injuries and maintaining a safe working environment. The safety manager prepares a schedule for visit to each and every plant/department atleast twice in a week and gives utmost importance to large department/plant like Zinc Electrolysis & Melting plant, Mechanical Department etc., and to hazards nature plants like Roaster Acid plant, Leaching Purification plant, Electrical department, Laboratory etc.